


the space between two men

by saveourtiredhearts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Dinner with the Avengers, Illegal Fighting, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve is sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Winter Soldier escapes hydra, and steve being sad, fight ring, lots of fighting, sort of like fight club but i've never seen fight club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 12:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7891945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saveourtiredhearts/pseuds/saveourtiredhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One could say it began at a seedy bar, but the truth is, it began in an alleyway over seventy years ago in Brooklyn, with a black eye, and a bleeding lip, and a joking “Sometimes I think you like getting punched”.</p><p>When Steve comes out of the ice, fighting becomes all he can do–-both to be useful, and to be himself. Steve and Bucky’s story has always revolved around a fistfight or two. Steve never thought that might continue into the twenty-first century. And yet, the man he meets at that seedy bar, the one he fights every Tuesday, like clockwork, somehow seems just like his dead best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the space between two men

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gosh. First of all, I've never written anything this long. Even though it's still rather short, I'm quite proud of it.
> 
> Second of all, a thousand thanks to my wonderful beta, [wttlpwrites!](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wttlpwrites/pseuds/wttlpwrites) Without her, this fic probably would have some terrible mistakes and incomprehensible sentences.
> 
> Third of all, thanks so much to my artist, who's on DeviantArt as macelbereth (check out her stuff [here!)](http://macelbereth.deviantart.com/) Her tumblr is [spectralprongs.](http://spectralprongs.tumblr.com/)

**_First._ **

He was at the bar because Natasha recommended it--pulled him aside after a team meeting and told him matter of factly that even if he couldn’t really get drunk, it might do him some good to get out of his ‘comfort zone’. Steve wasn’t sure he had a comfort zone in the first place--the new century was too loud and chaotic and _different_ \--but it was hard to refuse Natasha.

The pub was what he heard someone refer to as a “dive bar”--claustrophobic and dark, with a pool table shoved haphazardly near a wall, and the actual bar almost taking up the entire space. Nevertheless, a crowd of people easily fit in--on chairs, on tables, standing in corners with hunched shoulders and flitting eyes. There was a group of women hanging out in the corner. Two of them had their arms around each other. The third kept looking away, glancing across the bar, down at her feet, her eyes avoiding the women in front of her. Her arms were folded. The other two didn’t seem to notice.

Steve had managed to grab counter space. He was on his third shot of--something, he didn’t know what. He’d just blurted something out, reading from the chalkboard above the racks of beer and gin and vodka. The bartender, a big, gruff man, had grinned at his choice, but the man next to him rolled his eyes and snorted. Steve didn’t engage, just watched out of the corner of his eye as the man on his other side took delicate sips of a pink frothy drink and waved his arms wildly about as he talked to a dangerous looking girl, with legs that didn’t quite touch the floor from her seat on the barstool.

Steve reached out for his glass and toyed with the edge. It was empty, and when the bartender inclined his head Steve’s way, Steve gave a nod.

The bar was stuffy, so when the door opened and closed, the change in temperature was obvious. The cold wind swept through the bar door easily, and Steve instinctively turned his head to look. He watched as two men in t-shirts and sweatpants entered the bar, then went behind the counter to disappear through a small opening between the end of the racks and the wall.

It was December. It was too cold for t-shirts.

Steve stood up, left a couple of dollars under one of the empty shot glasses. He curved his shoulders in, held himself smaller than he was. No one looked at him as he slipped quietly behind the counter and through the opening.

There was a series of stairs. Then:

A basement, just slightly more lit than the bar upstairs. A large ring in the center, and two men, beating the shit out of each other.

It was sudden, the way the men just appeared, how the moment Steve stepped into the room the light hit them exactly so that they were bathed in a dim yellow glow. It highlighted the sharp edges of their bodies, emphasized the way they threw themselves at each other, the way the smack of fist against stomach rang out into the dark.

The room was musty, with concrete floors, and not much else besides the boxing ring. There were other people there, watching in silence, staring as the two men kept going at each other. No gloves, no headgear, just fists and shorts and bare bodies.

Steve stared as one of the men went down. The other man kept hitting him, kicking at the guy curled up on the floor, and Steve stepped forward, because you can’t kick a guy when he’s down, because Steve doesn’t like bullies, because he has to stop whatever’s wrong--

Even from a few feet away, Steve saw the man on the floor open his mouth. He heard “Uncle” whispered through broken teeth and split lips, a word he was pretty sure only the men in the ring and he could hear.

The beat down stopped. The man on the floor pulled himself up, holding the side of his body. He didn’t try to stand up, just slid awkwardly to the side of the ring. He eased himself off the lifted platform and staggered a bit. One of the men in the room came forward to help drag him off.

The man still in the ring stood there. Blood dripped from a gash above his eye, a split cheekbone, his top lip, a faucet with too many leaks.

There was no applause for the winner of the fight. It was not quite silent, but instead blank, an emptiness that made it hard to imagine that just second ago, the slap of skin against skin had pervaded the room.

“Hey,” came a voice to Steve’s left. Steve turned, startled. “You here to watch?” The man’s features were hard to make out in the dimly lit room. Steve supposed that was the point. The man looked Steve up and down. “Or to fight?”

Steve hesitated.

“How--?”

The man nodded, then pointed. Across the room, in a corner, was a small desk. A tiny desk light illuminated a clipboard, the stark white of the paper a point of reality in the shimmering nothing-ness of the place. The man who had just been knocked down, still leaning against his friend, was standing by it, drawing a line across what Steve presumed to be his own name.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Okay.”

He knocked the first man down easy, that one already worn down and tired. The second, easier. The third was hard, the fourth harder, and the fifth he really had to fight for it.

In battle, five men would be nothing. But here, it’s like a battle per man, each one fighting to stand up, to keep going, to not give in--

Steve’s never liked bullies. He never thought he’d be one.

When he left the ring after the sixth man, that first night, no one asked why. He went towards the exit, and a man stopped him.  He was shorter than Steve, with wrinkles stretched across his brow and bags set deep in under his eyes.

He said; “Don’t feel bad. They like it. They want it.”

Steve swallowed. Nodded.

_Sometimes I think you like getting punched._

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Me too.”

 

**_Soon._ **

He doesn’t mean to go back. He does anyway, almost through no fault of his own, just his legs taking him there after dark. After missions. After debriefs, after the same-old, same-old, after days, after weeks, after hours.

He went in the middle of the day once, but he was stopped by the bartender.

“Ain’t nothing there, kid,” he’d said. “Go home.”

Steve had gone to the gym instead, and split three punching bags wide open.

He’d gone to the room (in his head, he thinks of it with capital letters, The Room,) afterwards, and fought seven men, before heading to his SHIELD issued apartment with a cracked rib and a twisted ankle.

He heals real fast, nowadays.

 

**_Classified._ **

“What about Lily? The blonde from HR?” asks Natasha on the way back from Austria.

Steve raises an eyebrow. “SHIELD has an HR department?”

Natasha shrugs. “Not a very large one,” she says.

Steve runs a hand through his hair. It gets stuck halfway through, and he removes his hand, frowning at the mud. Natasha hands him a towel.

“Wipe your face, too,” she says. Steve gets the mud off first, then lifts the towel up to get his face. He swipes roughly.

The towel comes away bloody. Steve lifts a clean hand to his face.

“It’s not yours,” says Natasha. She’s taking her Widow’s Bites off, turned away from Steve. It's deliberate. Steve doesn't know why.

There’s a pause.

“How about Joey, then?”

Steve freezes.

“It's okay, you know,” Natasha says casually, like the whole world hasn't frozen, like she and Steve haven't just killed ten people in a base in southern Austria to prevent the leak of important information, like this isn't something that _matters._

“Natasha,” says Steve, and his voice is hoarse. “Stop.”

They don't say anything to each other until they get out of debrief.

“Where are you going?” asks Natasha as Steve starts to walk away, feeling the itch of his uniform all over his body.

“To change,” says Steve shortly.

 

**_After._ **

He leaves his uniform in a bag in his SHIELD locker and drives to the bar on his motorcycle. He slams down a beer, doesn’t even wince at the taste, and clatters down the stairs to the room below.

“You been fightn’ already?” asks a man standing near the clipboard. He’s got a baseball cap on, and a tight, long sleeve black shirt. His face is tipped downwards, and what Steve can see of his chin is covered by a black bandana.

Steve shrugs. “A little,” he says, and writes _Grant_ on the paper. There are only five names above him. One is crossed out. Two women are already in the ring. The one above _Grant_ reads _James._

The man--James--snorts, but doesn’t add much else. Steve moves away from the small desk, closer to the ring. To his surprise, James follows him.

“So, Grant,” says James after a moment. His voice is low, with an echo of old Brooklyn that makes Steve’s chest hurt, and only slightly muffled by the fabric tied around his mouth. “What do you do for a living?”

“You always make small talk with the guys you’re planning to beat up?” says Steve. His eyes are fixed on the women in the ring. He tracks them with his eyes, calculating, planning his moves. The taller one is faster, the other has more muscle. It’s a fifty-fifty chance, but if Steve had someone to bet with, he’d chose the taller one. There’s something about her face that’s almost feral.

James shrugs. “Dunno if I’ll beat you, actually. I’ve seen you around a couple times. Doesn’t look like you go down real easy.”

“I try not to,” because hell if he’s ever made it easy for anyone to put him down and keep him down. He might feel like dying everyday but that doesn’t mean he’s ever imagined a passive way out. Steve Rogers--that kid was born to go down fighting.

The fight in the ring’s getting more brutal. Blood spurting outwards, and Steve feels bad for whoever has to clean this place up in the morning.

James tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything.

Finally, one of the women goes down, and stays down. It’s the muscular woman, but Steve can’t even find it in himself to turn up his lips at his hypothetical winnings. Instead, he watches as the other woman helps her off, and they both stagger out of the ring.

“Huh,” says James. He turns to Steve. “Guess we’re both up.”

“You can--you can do that?” asks Steve, a little dumbfounded. “You can just--leave?” He doesn’t mean that. He leaves too, sometimes--when there’s no one left to fight. When there’s more people to fight, he leaves sometimes as well. But not often, and never--never with anyone else.

James is silent for a moment, then takes off his cap. His eyes are revealed--bright eyes, with lines etched deep. He doesn’t look old, though, just tired.

“Don’t got no rules here ‘cept sign the clipboard, I think,” says James. “You ready?”

Steve nods, and climbs after James into the ring.

They stand facing each other for a moment, and for a split second, Steve almost sees someone else in front of him. He almost sees Bucky.

But then it’s gone. And Steve has never been patient, so he goes ahead and throws the first punch.

It’s brutal. God, it always is, but usually Steve has to hold back, even just the tiniest bit, to make sure he doesn’t kill his partner. His usual punches seemed more like love taps to James though, the way he just brushes them away, and soon, Steve is really letting go.

It’s glorious.

It’s nothing like punching a bag until it breaks. Nothing is like fighting a person on equal ground, blow for blow, breath for breath, blood for blood. James, too, seemed to have handicapped himself at the beginning of the fight, avoiding using his left arm, pulling his punches. Then, he stops.

Steve realizes why James hadn’t been using his left arm much. The hand is covered by a thin glove, black leather and tight fit, but the feel of the arm and the force behind the punches gives it away.

“Has your arm always been made out of metal?” gasps Steve when they pull back and circle each other for the hundredth time. He’s in so much pain he feels like he’s burning, like he’s flying.

“You always make small talk with the guys you’re planning to beat up?” snarks back James. He, too, is breathing heavily. His bandana hasn’t slipped once.

Steve grins, shark teeth firmly in place at hearing his own words repeated back at him. “Looks like I’ve already roughed you up pretty good,” he answers, before leaping forward to swing once more.

James is a dirty, dirty fighter, using not only his hands to punch, but the rest of his body to pull off as many lowdown tricks as he can. But Steve knows all the tricks--knows them from back alleys in Brooklyn and Bucky, the guy who who’d practically invented the tricks in the first place. James is getting more and more flustered, Steve can tell.

“How do you know?” he growls, as the two grapple. “How do you know?”

“I’m still a fuckin’ Brooklyn punk wherever I go,” Steve shoots back. James loses his grip for a moment, just long enough for Steve to get a better one. He flips James over, slams him on his back, and James--

Doesn’t get up.

Instead he breathes wetly, like a damn fish, the bandana still over his mouth and his eyes looking up at the ceiling. For moment, Steve feels viciously proud, but then the blood haze leaves him.

“You alright?” he asks, just like always, when he’s taken a partner down.

James nods. “Got the wind--knocked out o’me,” he wheezes. “Gimme--a few.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow, because they both know that’s not how this game works. “You gonna give up, or do I have to make you?”

He can tell James grins because his eyes crinkle up.

“Tell you--what,” he manages to get out. “You--meet me back--here next week--” He coughs. “--same time, and--I’ll say the word.”

Steve doesn’t even have to consider it. This was the best fight he’s had in awhile. “Done,” he says promptly. Tuesday, at 10 pm. Shouldn’t be a hard appointment to keep.

James’ grin stays firmly in place. “Uncle,” he says, less wheezy now.

Steve grins back,and hauls him off the floor, before swinging the two of them out of the ring.

‘You’re not gonna keep going?” asks James, surprised.

Steve shakes his head. All of a sudden, the restless itch in the small of his back has eased, something no previous fights had been able to do. “We were in there for a long time,” he says. “Better to give some others a chance.”

“A chance to do what?” mutters James. He glances up at Steve, and Steve is taken aback by his eyes, graygreenblue that remind him of Bucky.

(James has been doing that a lot. Reminding him of Bucky.)

James is still waiting for an answer. Like Steve really knows why James needs to do this. Why anyone needs to get beat down to within an inch of their life by strangers.

Steve doesn’t have an answer.

 

**_Next Week._ **

“Where you headed, Cap?” asks Tony. The team’s at Avengers Tower--it’s the first time in weeks they’ve all been together.

Steve’s not ashamed to say that it was all Pepper’s idea. He had merely acquiesced to her few demands--that he wear something other than jeans, that he show up on time, that he’d eat dinner and try not to strangle anyone. The bar was set pretty low because Pepper had given the same instructions to each team member.

“The night is yet young,” Tony continues. He’s lying on one of the massive couches in the common room, a wine glass in one hand. “We have eaten, we have drunk, now let us be merry!”

Natasha snorts and Clint rolls his eyes. Bruce looks a little worried, but Tony and Thor are both grinning widely.

But it’s Tuesday. It’s 9:20. Steve’s going to be late for his standing appointment if he doesn’t leave soon. As nice as it was to hang out with his teammates, he felt itchy, and fidgety. Like he needed to do more than sit and talk and snark, like he needed to punch something.

Yeah. Or someone.

In the beginning, Steve had thought there was no way they’d be able to work together. But dinner tonight had been surprisingly normal (the word sounds funny in his mind), and no one hit anyone else with the heavy metal salad bowl. So a definite success.

(Especially since Natasha had given up on the whole date idea.)

“It was a delicious dinner, Tony, thank you,” says Steve sincerely. “And I definitely think we should do more nights like this.” He pauses. “Bowling, maybe?”

He hears a chorus of groans and one “Old man Rogers” that he’s pretty sure came from Clint. The joke doesn’t bother him. Much.

“I’ll see you all later,” says Steve, and heads for the elevator.

“You still haven’t told us where you’re going,” complains Tony.

Steve’s a shit liar. He knows this--Natasha’s bemoaned his incompetency many times.

“Home to sleep,” he says. “It’s way past my bedtime. I’m an old man, remember?” And with that, he disappears into the elevator, the doors shutting swiftly behind him.

 

**_Later._ **

They’re at the bar--the ring--again.

Fireworks light up behind his eyes, and Steve stumbles backwards, breathing heavily. He wipes his brow, grins across at James. They eye each other up for a moment, taking a minute. Steve curls his fists. James shakes his head, lets his hair fall forward.

“Don’t you hate that?” Steve asks, and gestures. “The hair in your face.”

James looks at him quizzically. “I’ve never really thought about it,” he says slowly. Steve can only tell he’s frowning from the way his eyebrows draw in. James shakes his head again.

They circle each other, quiet now. It’s easy as--as lying in bed, as sitting. It’s soft, even when James leaps forward and Steve throws up an arm to block him, jarring his shoulders in the process. The watchers on the sidelines are silent, and the only sounds in the room are the sounds he and James are making as they hurl themselves at each other.

Every time James hits him, Steve lights up. It’s something to focus on, it’s something to grab onto, something almost joyous, like the sticky-sweet smell of a popsicle on a hot evening. It’s a sea of peace in an ocean of rage, with the waves beating endlessly against each other.

There is no fall, there is no recovery. There is only this, this fist and this foot and this dodge and this grapple. There is only this.

 

**_Tomorrow._ **

New York is loud, and it should be comforting, but it really isn’t.

It’s a different sort of loud from the noise Steve grew up in. It’s not the yelling of neighbors or the rattling of cars on streets. It’s oppressive instead of comforting, and everything sounds and smells different now.

He walks a lot, trying to get a feel for the modern century, for the place he’s found himself in. It’s strange though, to expect one building to rise up before him only to turn the corner and see nothing there at all. He remembers the past oddly, colorblind as he was, but today’s New York seems almost dull, no matter the bright lights or flashing billboards. He tends to stare at the ground anyway, sandy concrete and black gravel.

Not to say there’s a lot of New York to compare to his memories. Steve and Bucky stayed mostly in Brooklyn, with a few trips to Coney Island and such. They didn’t have the time or the money to go further, no matter how much they wanted to. The Grand Canyon was a dream so lofty it seemed accessible. Manhattan was too close to be even achievable.

Steve’s not paying attention, staring at his feet, when all of a sudden, a man jumps in front of him. Instinctively, Steve reacts, twisting to shove the man into a nearby alley and then flinging him up against the wall.

“ _Who are you,”_ he growls, and it’s not until the man rasps out “Steve,” does Steve simultaneously realize that this is _Clint,_ and he’s strangling him. Immediately, Steve leaps back like he’s been burned, stumbling over a crack in the street and falling back against the other side of the alleyway.

“Fuck,” Steve gasps out, and wraps his right hand around a loose brick sticking out from the wall behind him as he tries to remember how to breathe. He shuts his eyes, tips his head back, thinks _in and out, in and out,_ and pretends Bucky is there, holding his hand against Steve’s chest.

He feels the brick crumble between his fingers.

“Jesus, Steve, I didn’t mean to scare you,” says Clint, his voice still rasping a bit. When Steve opens his eyes, he sees real concern on Clint’s face. “I just saw you walking, and I thought it would be funny…” He trails off.

“It’s okay,” Steve manages to get out. His breathing is going back to normal, and he tries to focus in on Clint. “Just...please don’t do it again.”

Clint nods, looking like he wants to reach out and hug Steve, while simultaneously knowing it’s not a good idea. “So--” he starts, before Steve cuts him off.

“I’ve gotta go,” he says, because he didn’t sign up for this, he just wanted to _walk--_

And he slides out of the alley, turns around and starts to jog, lets his feet pound the pavement, and let everything around him dissolve into a whirling dull gray mass of sound and sight.

 

**_Again._ **

He meets up with James and they fight and it’s exactly like any other Tuesday, except this time, when Steve steps out of the ring, James stays in.

“James?” asks Steve. He’s confused. They usually leave the ring together, no matter who gets knocked down first. They realized pretty quickly they could fight each other until death from exhaustion, and decided to just end the first time someone got knocked down and stayed down. Just like the first night.

James shakes his head. “Wasn’t enough,” he rasps, and blood trickles out of his mouth. “I need--” He’s shaking, Steve realizes.

Steve side eyes the guy next to him, the one he knows is going into the ring next.

“I don’t think you wanna--” he starts, and the guy steps back, shaking his head.

“All yours,” he says gruffly. Steve nods, and with only a slight wince, climbs back into the ring.

James’ eyes widen. “Wait,” he says, and Steve shakes his head.

“I’m not stupid,” he says, and James takes a step back. He’s almost afraid, Steve thinks. “You can’t go as hard on everyone else as you can on me, right? C’mon. Let go.”

“I could hurt you,” James chokes out. “I could kill you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” replies Steve, and lunges.

It’s not like their last couple of fights. It’s a new kind of brutality, a new kind of violence that has Steve gasping, even as he throws his hands out for another punch. It’s still dirty as hell, but it’s down to earth dirty, it’s kicking and punching and clawing dirty. James is using his left hand more than ever--Steve’s doing his best to keep up.

He doesn’t know how long they fight each other. He only knows, that eventually, that he swings a blow just so it catches the bandana wrapped around James’ mouth, just so that the bandana slips, then falls.

There’s a breathless moment where James’ full face is revealed, gazing at Steve.

“Bucky?” asks Steve, and then James punches him right in the ribs. There’s a horrific crack, and Steve topples backwards. He hits the ground, and an involuntary scream of pain leaves his lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see the few watchers left stand up, advance. He tries to tell them to get back, but when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a pained gasp.

“Grant!” shouts Bucky, and his face is suddenly in front of Steve’s and there’s a little fuzziness around the edges, but Steve is struggling to keep his eyes open, he has to keep his eyes open, because god, that’s Bucky, isn’t it? It shouldn't be, it can’t be, because Bucky’s dead, dead and gone and lost, but here he is, those eyes and those lips and that face, even with the long hair, he’s Bucky, he’s--

“Bucky,” Steve chokes out. He can't really breathe. He suspects he has a cracked rib.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

 

**_Morning._ **

Steve wakes up slowly, and it's disconcerting. His eyes peel open to look at a white ceiling, and he groans as feeling starts to return to him.

He's in the hospital. He’s not in much pain, but he can still feel the cracked rib when he shifts--which means he hasn't been out long.

“Stop moving,” says a stern female voice, and Steve turns his head to look at Natasha.

She's sitting on one of those awful hospital chairs, and looks perfectly comfortable, her legs propped up on the nightstand next to him.

“Natasha,” says Steve, and there's a little bit of pain, but not much, so he ignores it.

“What the hell were you doing,” she asks, only it's not really a question.

“...boxing?” says Steve, and then winces at how obvious the lie is.

Natasha doesn't seem amused at all. She swings her legs down and leans forward.

“I get a call at 1:32 in the morning from a man who believes he has broken your ribs. I drive to the address he gives me, to find you passed out on the floor, and the man who punched you gone. I don't know what you think you were doing, but--”

“He left?” asks Steve. He pushes himself to sitting position, ignoring the flash of pain. “Where did he go?”

Natasha gives him a look. A long one, with her full scrutinizing power. Steve suspects he’s giving away at least five things at the same time--but right now, he doesn’t care.

“Yes,” she says. “The bartender wouldn’t answer any of my questions, just said there had been a fight, and you had gotten hurt. It’s just difficult to believe a simple bar fight would have given a super-soldier two cracked ribs and bruises like the ones you have.” She leans forward. “There’s something I’m missing,” she says quietly. “And I want you to tell me what it is.”

Steve looks away from her, toward the window. Outside, it’s still night, nearing dawn--the sky’s a deep navy blue, and pink threatens from the line that separates the sky from the earth.

“I’m going to find out anyway,” says Natasha. “It would be easier--”

“This isn’t an interrogation, Natasha,” says Steve.

“No.” And Steve hears the squeal of metal chair legs against a linoleum floor, knows Natasha is leaving, is probably going back to the bar, will probably find the fighting room and a whole host of other secrets, and all Steve can think is that the window looks like it could be opened. “It’s not.”

The door opens, then shuts. There’s no one in the room now, no one but Steve, and Steve turns his attention to the window.

 _Stop being stupid,_ he thinks to himself. _You could just walk out of here AMA. No one would stop you._

He doesn’t know why he wants to go out the window. If someone saw him climb out a hospital window, it would be all over the internet in seconds-- _Captain America Hurt?--_ and he’d have to come up with some excuse, tell them why he did it, tell them how he got hurt, tell them who--

It would be painful, to climb out the window. It already hurt sitting up, and no matter how fast he heals, he’s sensitive to pain, more so than he used to be, thanks to the serum. He feels everything more acutely now, and it’s not a blessing, not even for a guy who was once half-deaf and colorblind. All that input--it’s so much. Too much. So yeah, it would hurt like a bitch to go out the window.

And it’s not like he’s going to figure out where Bucky went, and how the _fuck_ he’s alive by crawling out a goddamn window.

Plus, he’s about six floors up.

It’d be a long fall.

 

**_Afternoon._ **

Natasha comes back later and gets him signed out. By that point, Steve is supremely bored. His ribs aren’t healed--even with the serum, it’ll take the better part of a week for them to fix themselves.

She doesn’t say a word to him. She just hands him his clothes and signs him out, then drives him to Avengers Tower.

“Natasha--” tries Steve, because he doesn’t think he can deal with the other Avengers, not today. Even if the SHIELD apartment isn’t home, it’s somewhere--it’s somewhere to fall apart. He hadn’t dared do it in the hospital.

“No,” she says, and starts walking. Steve, helpless, follows.

They go up to the common room before Natasha turns on him, but Steve’s prepared for it, and she knows he’s prepared for it. She could’ve tried this back at the hospital, back in the car, while they were walking up, but for some reason she gave him time to pull himself together.

“An illegal fighting group,” she says. One of Natasha’s greatest tricks is being able to say a lot with very little, to insinuate and maneuver without much speaking. “You’ve been involved for weeks now. Why?”

And she’s never one to avoid hard questions.

“Ask me something else,” says Steve, because he doesn’t know how to answer.

Natasha watches him.

“You fought with other people, at first,” she says. “Then just him. James.” She takes a step forward. “Why?”

“He was good,” answers Steve honestly. “I didn’t have to pull any punches with him. And he didn’t have to either. We were--it was easy. Fighting him.” Easy is not the right word. It was never _easy._ But it helped, god it helped, in a way Steve’s not quite sure he knows how to explain, but he’s getting there, he’s getting there.

“And he’s the one who broke your ribs.”

“I got distracted.”

“You don’t get distracted. You’re Captain America.” It’s true, he doesn’t get distracted. Not out in battle, not in the middle of a fight, not when the world narrows down to just him and his enemy.

He was only thrown off this time because the man he was fighting wasn’t his enemy.

“I’m Steve Rogers,” says Steve.

Natasha tilts her head. “Why have you been fighting, Steve?”

For a moment, it’s Brooklyn, and Steve is nine again, and his mother is scolding him for fighting. _Why?_ She asks in her lilting Irish brogue. _A small lad like you, you can’t always take on the world._

And then it’s 2012 again. And Natasha’s still waiting for an answer.

There’s a line here--a line between too little and too much, a line between Steve Rogers and Captain America and Steve’s tired of pretending he isn’t both at once, that they’re two separate entities, that Captain America isn’t selfish and Steve Rogers isn’t courageous. He’s not ready to break down the wall, not entirely, but here--this is a good place to start.

He turns to Natasha. He takes a deep breath.

“Pretend,” says Steve, “Pretend that no one believes in you. Oh, maybe your mom thinks you’ll make something of yourself, but no one else does, not really. And then a boy comes along, and he does believe in you, he thinks--he thinks you’re _good--_ ” And Steve has to swallow down a sob. “And then you both end up going to war, and you change, and now everyone believes in you, but you’re not you, not anymore, and these people only believe in who they think you are. So you try, god you try to be what they want you to be, you try so _goddamn_ hard. But the one person who still thinks of you as you--the real you, not the fake one, not the one, they fucking made up, the one you thought you wanted to be, but you can’t--that one person dies,  he fucking dies because of you.”

Natasha almost steps forward, but when Steve chokes out a laugh, she stills. “You’re supposed to save everyone, but you couldn’t save the one fucking guy you cared about the most.” He doesn’t look at Natasha. “It’s a goddamn waste of time to even try anymore so you die too, only you don’t--you don’t really. You wake up, and you’re alone, and everyone sees you as the person you should be, the person you’re supposed to be, nobody really knows--knows how it feels, and no one asks. And the only thing, the only fucking thing you can feel is pain, the only fucking thing you’re good for is fighting, so fuck it, why not go ahead and mix the two?”

“Steve--”

Steve’s not crying, but he’s close. “Just smash it together, and it doesn’t matter that it’s illegal--it’s not what anyone thinks you’d ever do, because no one knows you. And it doesn’t matter that you’re hurting people, because they want to get hurt, just like you want so badly to get hurt, get hurt real bad and stay down, and not get up. You shouldn’t want that, you shouldn’t because you’re needed and you asked for this and everyone expects you to jump right back in with a patriotic grin, but you never went into a fight grinnin’ with a shield on your arm, you went in scowling with two fists raised. So fighting, pain, hand to hand, you can make sense of that, you get that, and--and if one day you don’t get back up again, that’s okay too. And this guy--this guy you keep fighting--you don’t know why he’s fighting, but it feels so good to fight him, it feels so damn good to get hit, it feels like--like--” Steve’s gasping for breathe, and his cheeks are wet. He covers his face, humiliated. “I don’t know,” he rasps. “I don’t know.”

He shudders, wet sobs heaving out of him, giving up what he can’t keep in. He feels isolated, broken, damaged goods, and he fights the urge to turn away when he feels Natasha’s arms slip around him.

She doesn’t try to silence him, though. She just holds on.

“Steve,” Natasha says a few minutes, hours, later. “Steve,” she says again.

Steve draws a raggedy breath, moves his face away from her shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say now. (He never could talk to girls.)

“The man,” she says. “Who was he?”

As always, Natasha seems to get to the core of the problem, manages to step in front of the next speeding bullet, grab onto the tail end of Steve’s hysteria and climb up to find what he’s really fixated on. Steve thinks he might love her, just a little bit, just for being who she is.

“Either I’m going crazy,” says Steve, with a laugh he forces out passed the squeezed sides of his throat, out through his parched mouth and his dry lips. “Or it was Bucky.”

“Bucky Barnes,” repeats Natasha. “You’re sure?”

“His face,” Steve says. “I’d know his face anywhere.”

Natasha steps back to look at him. Then, she nods. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s go get your boy.”

Steve stares at her. “Just like that?”

Natasha gives him a half smile. “Just like that.”

 

**_Subsequently._ **

Tony isn't won over as easily.

“You want me to use my super advanced system to scan for your long lost--I'm sorry, _dead_ \--buddy?” he asks incredulously.

Steve shrugs. “I could just go out and look for him, but I thought this might be easier.”

Tony snorts. “Easier for you maybe.”

Steve can feel Natasha’s raised eyebrows from behind him. “You’re a genius, Stark,” she says drily, and Steve has to suppress the sudden urge to snort, a completely inappropriate reaction to the situation. “It can’t be that hard.”

Tony scowls, but turns to whatever hologram is floating behind him. “Did you ever consider that this guy isn’t Bucky?” he asks as he starts flinging shiny blue images around. They hurtle like comets across the room, dissolving into invisible dust. “Maybe he’s just a descendent. And you said the room was dark when you saw his face. Are you sure--”

“Yes,” says Steve hastily, determined to cut Tony off, because _yes,_ he’s thought about all of this before, sitting in that godawful blank hospital room, but--

“I mean, he’s been dead for seventy-odd years, Cap,” says Tony, not even bothering to turn around. His hands dart around like fruit flies, and the way they move is a fascinating dance. “It’s pretty unlikely he’d turn up again, much less turn up at an illegal boxing ring in downtown New York as a guy who doesn’t remember his own name.”

Steve bites his lip.

“What are you trying to say, Tony?” asks Natasha calmly. At that, Tony looks away from the blue hologram, and over at Steve.

“I don’t think it’s him,” says Tony, just as Steve says “You think I’m crazy.”

Tony’s hands finally stop moving. “Do you?” he asks.

Steve turns, and leaves.

 

**_Dusk._ **

Natasha doesn’t come after him as he swings a leg over the seat of his motorcycle and drives out of the garage. If she was going to, she would have done so already, and Steve has to swallow down the hurt that rises in his chest. Maybe she thinks he’s crazy too. She’s the best liar he knows.

He just rides for a while, until almost instinctively he turns onto the street with the bar and the ring. He pulls up to a stop in front of it, and stares for a bit.

It’s pretty unassuming--a brick building sandwiched in between what looks like a tattoo parlor and a restaurant. The wooden door needs a new paint job, and the shutters on the windows are crooked.

Steve’s only been here once before when the sun was still in the sky. He had gone looking for a fight, had gone looking for something to plunge his fists in, something that would equal him in brute strength, maybe even keep him down for once. He hadn’t been looking for happiness, merely a relief.

How come he had found both, and then managed to lose them again?

Jesus, Bucky--

Sometimes--no, often--Steve dreams about the train. He dreams the same ending, the true ending, over and over and over again. Their hands, almost touching, but just too far, and the strangled scream that tore itself from Bucky as he hurtled towards death and destruction. Even in his dreams, Steve could never change the nightmare.

Somehow, even when Steve never saved him, Bucky’s here. Bucky’s. There’s so much tangled up in that--how? Why? What happened?--plus his guilt, and the worry that maybe he’s wrong. Maybe James isn’t Bucky.

A car honks, and Steve jumps, startled.

“Get out of the street, fucker!” shouts a guy from his car window.

Steve rolls his eyes and stuck his middle finger up. “Fuck you too!” he yells back, before gunning his motorcycle and pulling close to the curb. The car whirls by him, and Steve is left, yet again, behind.

A short cough comes from behind him. Steve turns, and on the small patch of gravelly grass that separates the sidewalk from the bar stands Bucky. Or James.

He’s back in a cap, but the bandana is gone.  It’s light out, but the bar is casting a long shadow, so that Bucky’s face is still obscured. Steve doesn’t know if this is intentional or not.

“Hi,” says Steve, because he doesn’t know what to say. He’s still straddling the bike, so he awkwardly climbs off. Bucky steps back, looks away.

“I don’t know you,” he says. Steve blinks.

“I’m--” he starts. “I’m Steve Rogers. Your best friend.”

“I don’t--no,” says Bucky, and shakes his head. The long strands of black hair wave about. “That’s not--weren’t you smaller? I thought--”

“I thought you were dead,” says Steve, before he can stop himself. Bucky’s head swivels to face him.

“I was,” he says horsely, and crosses his arms over his chest. “For a little while.”

Steve aches. He steps forward, catches his toe in a crack on the sidewalk, and stumbles. A hand closes around his wrist and holds him upright.

“Woah,” says Bucky, and then they’re inches away from each other. Bucky doesn't let go of his wrist.

“Do you remember me, Bucky?”Steve can't help but ask.

There’s a wry twist to Bucky’s mouth as he answers. “I know your face. But you don't know who I am.”

“What?” says Steve, confused. “You’re James Buchanan Barnes. You're my best friend. We’ve known each other since--since--”

“Childhood. 1920s Brooklyn.” says Bucky. His face has slackened, his eyes gone dull, but his fingers are still tight around Steve’s wrist. “I read--I don't remember that. But a lot--a lot has happened since then. I don't remember Bucky. But I remember--I remember you.”

He looks lost, staring at Steve.

“Buck,” says Steve softly. “What happened to you?”

Bucky looks immeasurably old. “You don’t want to know.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. Of course he wants to know--he wants to know what happened each second since he and Bucky had been separated, wants to know how this, this miracle that seems to be created by some sort of nightmare, is even possible. He takes his right hand, reaches up to brush a string of hair out of Bucky’s face, but when he gets close, Bucky’s breath hitches, and his eyes go blank. Steve drops his hand.

“I do,” he murmurs. “Whatever you want to tell me, I--I want to know.”

Bucky stares at him. “Not here,” he says. “Somewhere secure.”

“I know a place,” says Steve. They’re still so close together, still attached, hand to wrist. All he can think about is getting home. “Do you trust me?”

It’s a loaded question, one that’s slightly unfair, with Bucky’s clear memory loss and faint remembrance of Steve. But Bucky doesn’t even blink.

“Yes,” he replies simply.

Steve manages a grin, draws it up out of somewhere. “Then let’s ride.”

 

**_Following._ **

He doesn’t take Bucky to Avengers Tower, because deep down, he doesn’t see it as safe. It may be run by a superintelligent computer, not to mention the superintelligent man, but _safe_ to Steve is surrounded by four walls that don’t project holograms, and a coffeemaker he knows how to use.

He and Bucky don’t talk as they walk up the flight of stairs to his apartment. Silently, Steve unlocks the door, and lets Bucky in.

Bucky steps through the doorway and immediately plasters his back against the wall. His eyes jump across the room, and Steve tries to follow him, tries to imagine what he’s thinking.

He can’t. He sees the couch and thinks _utter exhaustion_ , he sees the record player and thinks _homesickness,_ he sees the sketchbook on the glass table and thinks _heart,_ he turns to see Bucky and he thinks _soul._

Meanwhile, Bucky points at the large window on the wall and murmurs “Security risk.”

“Nice lighting,” Steve shoots back, and steps through the doorway to look the door behind him. He slides past Bucky, and throws his keys in the dish on the kitchen counter. Behind him, Bucky snorts, and Steve is hit by a wave of emotion so fierce that he has to grip the edge of the table for support.

“You draw,” says Bucky, and there’s the unmistakable sound of pages flipping.”You used to--we put your cartoon, the one the newspaper bought, on the wall, but--you liked landscapes. And people.”

Steve turns, and is stuck between the urge to rip his sketchbook out of Bucky’s hands and the need to grab another one so he can capture this; Bucky, back still to the wall, head bent over the book and hair dangling.

“Yeah,” he says, instead of doing either. “I drew a lot back in Brooklyn. Usually for fun, but I made money from it too, sometimes. I would paint signs, and try to sell cartoons. I even drew for a blue book once,” says Steve, a little self-consciously.

At this, Bucky looks up. Steve forgot to turn the lights on, but with the daylight streaming through the window and Steve’s eyesight, Steve can still make out his features. Bucky’s lips are pressed in a straight line, but there are wrinkles around his eyes.

“I think I remember that,” he says slowly. He shakes his head swiftly, as if to rid himself of something loose that’s gotten stuck there.

Steve doesn’t say _do you remember how you found out, do you remember what you did, do you remember what happened next,_ because it has become abundantly clear that Bucky doesn't remember much, and Steve can’t take another crack in his heart.

“Can I still call you Bucky?” he asks, instead.

The wrinkles around Bucky’s eyes fade. “What else would you call me?” asks Bucky.

Steve has to think for a moment. “You were using James,” he says. “At the--the ring.”

“They called me _soldat,_ sometimes,” says Bucky, unblinking. “ _Zima Soldat.”_

Steve swallows. He moves away from the kitchen counter, back into the living room. He walks to the couch, and after a moment, sits.

He wants to ask _what happened to you_ but he doesn’t know how to say it. Instead, he watches Bucky flip through his sketchbook. It’s almost methodical--he’ll flip the page, and scan it over, eyes darting back and forth, before going to the next. Steve’s not sure what he’s looking at when he stops.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“I fell from a train,” Bucky says, and his head comes slowly up to stare at Steve. From across the room, Steve has to fight the urge not to shiver. Instead, he digs his hands into the gray soft fabric of the couch. “It was--cold, and then--they took me. Trained me. Made me fight for them and then--” He shakes his head, a violent twitch. “They stuck me back in the cold. And the chair--it hurt. It made you forget.”

“The chair made you forget,” says Steve slowly. “And the cold--froze you.”

“They made me an arm,” says Bucky, and his eyes are blanked out, far away. “They made me a weapon. They made me _kill.”_ He barely looks angry, just defeated, in the slump of his shoulders and the loose set of his mouth. The sketchbook dangles from one hand.

“When you fell, they captured you, and brainwashed--” Steve says, and he grits his teeth against the sudden anger that rises up in him. It boils, and it _burns._

“The chair hurt,” says Bucky, almost repeating what he said earlier. The words shoot through Steve like a bullet.

“God, _Bucky,”_ and then he’s at a loss. “Who did this to you?”

All of a sudden, energy returns to Bucky’s eyes. He looks, really looks, straight at Steve, a strong glare that has him pinned where he sits.

“Hydra,” Bucky says.

 

**_Then._ **

Steve makes cocoa because he has to do something with his hands, and the only other thing he can think of is violence.

But Bucky’s not at the ring. Bucky’s here, and Steve doesn’t want to hurt Bucky any more than he’s already been hurt. Already, Steve feels shame rise in his gut as he boils milk. He hurt Bucky. He _hurt_ Bucky. It’s something else they have to talk about.

But Bucky’s turned monosyllabic again. It’s like the cover of “James” let him speak as he did at the bar, and without it, he’s lost. The cap is off, literally and metaphorically.

Steve pours the milk into two white mugs, then dumps in two tablespoons of cocoa in each. He reaches for the sugar bowl, hesitates, but finally brings it down to add a heaping spoonful to one of the mugs. He ventures out into the living room.

Bucky has rejected the couch for the floor. The coffee table has been shoved closer to the television that Steve barely uses, and he’s staring out into the distance. Steve circles the couch to stand in front of him.

“Bucky,” he says. When there’s no response, he sets the cup of cocoa down in front of Bucky’s crossed legs, and then sits down beside him.

They brush shoulders, and Bucky’s head swivels toward him. “Что-” he starts, and then his mouth clicks shut. He shakes his head.

“I don’t speak Russian, Bucky,” says Steve gently.

“No,” comes a voice from Steve’s left. “But I do.”

Steve turns. He’s at once surprised, and not shocked at all, to see Natasha in the doorway. Behind her stands Clint, fingering his bow, and Tony. He’s not dressed in the Iron Man suit, but Steve knows there’s a version he can have on in a minute, if not less.

Steve has a sudden, overwhelming urge to get his shield.

“Ah, spiderling,” says Bucky, a Russian accent overlaying his words. Natasha’s eyes widen for a split second, hardly noticeable, before her face closes back up into a blank expression.

“The Winter Soldier,” she replies, and Bucky growls.

“Not anymore,” he says shortly.

“So you didn’t kill Anna Patrova on west 46th street a week ago?” asks Clint.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, but wraps his fingers around the mug tighter. He’s wearing gloves, most likely to hide the metal hand. Steve looks at him, then back at Natasha, and carefully stands.

“Natasha,” he says. ‘What’s going on?”  
“I could ask you the same thing, Rogers,” Tony says instead. “Where the hell did you manage to pick up the _Winter Soldier?_ Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess--a strip joint.”

“Tony,” says Natasha. “Shut up.” She steps forwards, and that’s when Bucky reacts.

He springs to his feet, throws the cup of cocoa at Natasha’s face, turns, and smashes his way out of the window in the living room and into the night air.

He’s inhumanly fast, but Steve already knew that, from all those times in the boxing ring.

His window is shattered, and he leans out, as Natasha speaks quickly into her comm and Clint and Tony argue over who should pursue. Steve looks out into the sky that has rapidly darkened since he met Bucky outside of the bar, and he sees nothing. For a moment, he thinks he might do it. Just jump out of the window himself (not as far up as the one at the hospital) and chase after Bucky. Get out of here.

But if Bucky doesn’t want to stay with him--Steve can’t force him to. He doesn’t quite understand what happened since Bucky fell off the train, but from Bucky’s struggling explanation and the scene that just played out before him, he has a pretty good idea of the trouble Bucky’s in right now.

Steve could never keep his beak out of trouble.

“Tell me about the Winter Soldier,” he says to Natasha, Clint and Tony. They all look at him. “And I’ll tell you about Bucky Barnes.”

 

**_Continuing._ **

Apparently Natasha sent SHIELD agents after Bucky, but she doesn’t seem confident about their rate of success as she sits at Steve’s kitchen table. Steve tries not to look smug--he knows they won’t be successful.

Clint is fiddling with his coffee cup. Tony’s already downed the whole thing, and is sitting in front of the refrigerator, fiddling with the dust grate at the bottom and whatever machinery is behind it.

“Please don’t break that,” says Steve, sitting across from Natasha. Tony merely snorts, and keeps working.

“I don’t understand,” says Tony, instead of responding to Steve’s completely legitimate worry for the fate of his fridge. “I thought you said Bucky Barnes was _James._ How is he the Winter Soldier too?”

“I don’t know who the Winter Soldier is,” says Steve, exasperated. “I don’t understand--Natasha, the man in my apartment was--is Bucky Barnes. James. What are you--”

“The Winter Soldier is an assassin,” says Natasha in response. “One of the most deadly assassins in the last century. He’s been killing since the 40s, passed from organization to organization. Dignitaries, ambassadors, politicians--he’s one of the greatest shots in the world. And you let him into your apartment.”

“He’s Bucky,” says Steve, helplessly, and then, recalling his and Bucky’s conversation, “They made him kill. He didn’t want to, they made him.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. She still hasn’t touched her coffee mug. “He told you that? In his own words?”

Steve bites his lip. “He said they brainwashed him. There was a chair--” Immediately, Natasha’s shoulders go up. “Natasha?”

“I was trained in the Red Room,” she says slowly, and out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Clint frown slightly. “The Winter Soldier, for a short while, was my mentor.”

“Why am I not surprised?” mutters Tony, and something clangs to the ground. Steve jumps in his chair, then resettles.

“Natasha,” he says. “The man in my apartment--may be the Winter Soldier. But he’s also Bucky Barnes. He’s _James.”_

Natasha stares at him. “Yeah,” she says, with heavy finality. “I’m beginning to understand that.”

“Well great,” announces Clint, “because I am still very confused. Would someone mind starting from the top? And speaking slower? Who the hell is James?”

Steve looks at Natasha.

“Okay,” she says. “From the top.”

 

**_Twilight._ **

Piece by piece, they put it together.

Steve goes first, explaining Bucky’s capture and torture at the Hydra cam Kriesh, and the experiments likely performed on him there. He tells them how he had no basis of comparison for Bucky’s skill as a sharpshooter because he never saw Bucky in action until after he was experimented on by Zola. He tells them of the train in as little detail as possible, and has to fight his way to get through the end.

Natasha picks up the story next, giving up as much detail as she knows. There’s a file out there, apparently, which Natasha might be able to get. She tells them that the Soviets formed the Winter Soldier, that his metal arm was almost a trademark, and when the Soviet Union fell, he was too valuable to be simply decommissioned. That he was passed on, though she doesn’t know to whom.

Steve interrupts her here. “Hydra,” he whispers, like by saying their name the Red Skull will appear, out of the star-filled sky he disappeared into. “That’s who got him next, Hydra.” Natasha nods, quietly accepting.

“But you destroyed them,” says Clint, and Tony looks equally confused. He’s maneuvered his way into a kitchen chair now, and is on his third cup of coffee. “In World War Two, when you crashed the plane into--” Too late, Clint clamps his mouth shut.

“I thought I did,” says Steve, staring down at the wood grain of the kitchen table. “I thought--” And then he has to look away, collect himself, erase the groans and cracking of sea ice from his ears.

Then it’s time for the next part of the story--James.  

It’s surprisingly easy to tell them about finding the boxing ring, hell, even fighting in it. As long as he doesn’t go into any details about why he even stepped up to fight, or why he kept coming back, Steve can get all this out without choking on his words. Instead, he focuses on James, the guy he knew before he became Bucky.

“So you only suspected it was Barnes after the bandana came off?” asks Natasha. Tony’s still snorting over the bandana part--apparently it has something to do with cowboys and villains.

Steve thinks for a moment. He wants to say no, that he picked up on the way Bucky moved, or spoke, that the way James constantly reminded him of Bucky was the clue he needed, or that his immediate attraction to ‘James’ was based in memory. But the truth is--

“Yes,” he says simply, and looks down at the wood of the table again.

Natasha doesn’t push, but leans back in her chair and arches an impressive eyebrow. “It’s unlikely that we’ll catch him at this point,” she says. “At least, it’s unlikely for most. Usually I wouldn’t be put on a fetch mission, but for this one--” She meets Steve and Tony’s eyes. “He trained me. I know him.”

“You’re actually going to try and go after him?” Steve asks. He’s not really surprised. He thought Natasha would spin out some disparaging remarks about SHEILD agents and then go out on her own to confront the ‘Winter Soldier’ without telling the rest of them, but he’s glad she’s being open.

Natasha nods. “He won’t come back--”

“Why not?” Steve interrupts.

Natasha is silent for a moment, and Clint jumps in.

“I don’t think he’s especially keen to get caught, do you?” he says drily.

Steve shrugs. “He followed me back here calmly enough,” he says. “He knows me. He _remembered,”_ and the last word is inflected with a little too much desperation, but he can’t take it back now. “He’s gotta come back of his own free will, Natasha, I can’t let you try and drag him back.”  
“So you’d let him murder another innocent.”

Steve lets out a frustrated noise, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. “That wasn’t him. They brainwashed him, Natasha--”

Natasha holds up a hand to stop him. “You don’t need to try and convince me,” she says quietly. Then she leans forward, face intent. “But just a week ago, he did kill a woman. Anna Patrova, 42, a Russian scientist who moved out here to work in an environmental protection company. Soviet slugs, no rifling. That’s what the Winter Soldier always uses.”

“He...probably had a good reason?” suggests Steve weakly. Clint scoffs. Steve barrels on. “Please Natasha, you can’t go after him. Wait, I promise he’ll come back. I’ll talk to him, we’ll figure something out, just don’t--don’t _capture_ him.” He’s been caged up long enough, Steve doesn’t say.

Natasha scrutinizes him. “SHIELD can’t wait that long,” and Steve recognizes it for what it is--not an outright ‘no’.

“They’ll have to,” he says firmly. Natasha tilts her head down, just enough to constitute a nod.

 _Please, Bucky,_ thinks Steve, as she and Tony and Clint start to leave. He’s not sure what he’s asking for.

No, that’s a lie. He knows exactly what he wants. He’s just not sure he’ll ever get it.

 

**_After._ **

Steve doesn’t even try for a walk this time, not like he did yesterday, just clatters out of his apartment and starts sprinting. There’s no particular destination in his mind and yet he ends up at Prospect Park, diving off the path to avoid other joggers and trying to get the drum of his feat to drown out the thoughts in his head. He can’t go to the ring to get rid of the endless noise in his head, he can’t go because James won’t be there to beat it out of him, and nothing else seems to make it stop, except for--

He can feel eyes on the back of his neck. He runs on, used to it. SHIELD had started to ease up on the constant surveillance once Steve had proven he wasn’t depressed enough to do anything particularly foolhardy outside the battlefield, but with this new development, he doubts they’re going to let him out of their sight for a while.

Then, a shadow skirts by the edge of his vision.

Steve doesn’t slow down. For a moment, he longs for his shield, but it would be ridiculous to bring it out every time he went somewhere. It’s hard enough not being recognized without it. He doesn’t even have a knife though, or some sort of protection, and he itches for a weapon.

He sees the shape again--obviously a man, and it’s enough for Steve to think _maybe_. He only barely tries to fake the trip that sends him flying off the path and into the nearby trees. It’s more like a leap than anything else.

He careens into strong arms that pull him in, then push him up against a tree. Steve was right. It’s Bucky.

He doesn’t look worse, but he doesn’t look any better either. He has a baseball cap on, and a day’s worth of stubble. There are bags under his eyes, and a sort of settled weariness about him.

“Bucky,” says Steve, and doesn’t know what to say next.

“Hey Stevie,” and the name sounds familiar in his mouth, like Bucky’s been rolling it around in his mouth for a while.

They’re silent for a moment, looking at each other. Steve hopes the agent he knows was following him doesn’t choose now to come bursting through the trees.

“I still don’t remember,” Bucky says, like he knows that’s what Steve wants to hear first. His right hand slips down Steve’s arm, latching onto his wrist instead. “But I know--I know I did bad things.”

“Under Hydra,” Steve says softly, and watches Bucky flinch at the name. “You told me Buck, I know--”

“No,” Bucky snarls, and pushes Steve so that his head whacks against the tree trunk. “No, you _don’t._ I killed _children,_ Steve. I murdered women, and men, and killed people because they _got in the way of my mission_ . And then I got out, and I did it _again.”_

“The scientist,” Steve breathes. A shudder wracks its way through Bucky’s body, and his metal hand pinches the skin on Steve’s arm.

“Anna Patrova,” Bucky says and his voice has gone dull, his eyes hollow. “42 years of age. Lived on West 46th Street.” He shakes his head, just once, and his hair flows across his face. “She was there,” and his voice has gone hoarse. “The chair--when--she wanted--” He shakes his head again, unwilling or perhaps unable to articulate.

“A--handler?” Steve asks. Bucky growls, but shakes his head, this time in a definite answer to Steve’s question. Then the only other option--”A scientist.”

Bucky nods. “Yes. She was there twice, and when they pulled me out of cryo, she--” He stops. Steve waits, but nothing more is forthcoming, and he’s not willing to push. Not when he’s unsure how much time they have left before SHIELD comes to get him, before Bucky flees and Steve loses him again.

“It’s okay,” he soothes, and Bucky doesn’t respond. That’s fine, as Steve’s reassurance was probably a lie anyway.

“Why were you fighting?” Bucky asks suddenly. He’s loosened his hold on Steve, and his right hand has made it’s way into Steve’s.

Steve doesn’t particularly want to have this conversation again, but he figures Bucky has a right to know. He takes a breath.

“I was lost, when I came out of the ice,” he starts, and feels Bucky shiver against him. “And everyone wanted me to go back to war, to be Captain America. No one knew who Steve Rogers was, no one cared who Steve Rogers was.” His voice is bitter, and Bucky’s looking at him, intent. “It hasn't been seventy years in between for me, it's been five months and everyone either treats me like a hero, or like I’m going to break. At the ring--when I was fighting--that was me. And--” He swallows. “It was the only thing I was good for, Bucky, without--without you, fighting is the only thing I’m good for.”

“Don’t say that,” whispers Bucky, and he leans his head against Steve’s chest. They breath together for a minute.

“When I got out,” says Bucky, speaking down to the ground. “All I knew was pain. I couldn’t remember anything. They made me--some came back, but the arm--” He raises his prosthetic. “--and everything hurt--” He takes a deep breath. “All I was good for was fighting,” he finally says.

“You’re good,” says Steve with all the conviction he has. “You’re good for so much more than that.”

Bucky looks up, and his face is sort of scrunched up, like he’s trying to think. Hesitantly, he says, “Steve--”

“Yeah?”

“No more fighting.”

It’s heartfelt, Steve knows, but his heart sinks anyway. “Bucky, I’m Cap--”

“No,” says Bucky, and lifts his right hand to cradle Steve’s cheek. “Fight the bad guys, but--Steve Rogers has,” and he swallows, hesitant and unsure, “Steve Rogers has Bucky Barnes.”

“Yeah,” breathes Steve, “Okay.”

Bucky eyes crinkle up, not in the same way they used to (Steve doubts he’ll ever do anything exactly the way he used to) and Steve can’t help but to reach out his hand and cup Bucky’s cheek as well.

“You’re here,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know how to communicate that the weight inside his stomach since he woke up has melted away, how with Bucky in front of him he feels that maybe he can make a home out of this strange place he’s found himself in.

“Steve,” says Bucky, and the word drops from his lips like molten gold, like the way you’d say God after walking through the gates of heaven. Bucky presses forward, and Steve lets him. Their lips meet, and for a moment, it’s pure bliss.

Then, Bucky pulls back. “We did that--before,” he says, still hesitant. Steve gives a slight nod, delaying his answer so he can keep Bucky’s arms bracketing his head, Bucky’s legs enclosing his thighs, the tree against his back, Bucky against his front.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and even to his own ears, he sounds wrecked. “We did, and we--”

“Hands in the air!” shouts a voice.

For a moment, Steve is absolutely confused as to where he is, and what’s happening, until Bucky spins around and brings himself into a fighter’s stance. With one hand, he whips out a gun and aims it at the SHIELD agents that have surrounded them. With the other, he pushes Steve back against the tree, where Bucky can provide more cover for him.

 _Damn,_ Steve wishes he had his shield.

And then Nicky Fury steps out of the trees.

“What the _fuck_ are you--” Steve spits.

“He may be Bucky Barnes,” says Fury, smoothly cutting short Steve’s protests, “But he’s also the Winter Soldier. He’s been on the wrong side for a while now, Rogers. Does twenty-odd years of friendship erase the sixty years of killing?”

“You don’t know--” starts Steve, and he’s getting worried, because Bucky’s still all coiled muscle, but the arm holding the gun is dropping.

“No, we don’t know.” Steve wants to punch Fury. “Which is exactly why we need to take him in and question him. Do you know how many people he’s killed? Who he worked for? How he got out?”

The answer, of course, is no. Steve doesn’t know, hasn’t asked, hasn’t even thought of asking. Has only thought of Bucky as finally returned.

The SHIELD agents inch closer. Bucky holsters the gun, and turns to Steve.

“Stevie,” he says, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes.

“Buck,” says Steve helplessly, and reaches for him.

“He’s dangerous, Captain,” says Fury, as two agents grab Bucky’s arms and pull them behind his back, locking him in handcuffs as if they’ll really restrain him. But Bucky makes no move to free himself. “And he has information we need. Plus,” he adds, as if he only just thought of this. “We can help him--regain himself.”

“He is himself,” Steve says helplessly, knowing it’s a lie. “He’s whoever he wants to be,” and Bucky’s shaking his head as he’s led away (it makes Steve’s blood boil, makes him think _like a cow to slaughter)_ and Steve doesn’t know how to protest this.

Fury watches Steve as Bucky disappears from view. “We’ll get him back to you,” he says, voice gruff.

Steve can’t do a thing but acquiesce, slip into the Captain America mode of following all orders, even unspoken ones, because he doesn’t know what else to do and it’s been his default since he woke up. _Sir, yes sir._

Goddamn, does he want to punch something.

 

**_Next._ **

It’s a week before they let him see Bucky, and everyone refuses to tell him what’s going on. Steve’s not even sure what he does that week. He remembers the desperate itch in his body that he tried to quench by running, smacking his feet against the pavement so hard he felt he might break through. If only he could see Bucky--

He might be able to let himself fall apart in a way that didn’t require violence.

Instead he runs, and sets up the guest bedroom in his apartment with light blue walls, and plenty of open space. He doesn’t get set on any missions, even non-Avenger related ones, and Steve suspects it might be because of his recent behavior. Not that he regrets a moment of it.

He waits, and waits, and waits.

Finally, Natasha shows up at his door and brings him down to SHIELD. Then she brings him down through SHIELD, and sets him up in front of a glass wall. Behind the wall, of course, is Bucky.

He’s scrunched up on his bed, his face hidden by his hair. He’s in blue SHIELD clothing, and even though it’s darker, Steve has a sudden moment of panic about the walls in his apartment.

 _Stop,_ he thinks sternly to himself. _He has other things to worry about. You have other things to worry about._ And then; _he might not even come to see you._

“Can he hear me from out here?” he asks one of the guards standing by.

“Yes, sir,” she says, with a respectful bow of her head. Steve bites his lip, turns away from her.

And it seems that Bucky _can_ hear him, because his head is up, and he’s climbing off the bed, and he’s coming towards the wall.

“Steve,” Bucky breathes, and puts a hand on the glass. The sound issues from above him--there must be some sort of speaker.

“Hey Buck,” he says. He slides his hand up to cover Bucky’s. They stay there, almost touching and not quite.

“Steve,” says Natasha, and Steve had already forgotten she was behind him. He doesn’t turn to look, instead just inclines his head to show that he heard. “They’re letting him go, Steve.”

That makes Steve turn, though he keeps his hand firmly on the glass. “In exchange for what?” and he can tell his voice is harsh, but he doesn’t care. No good thing comes without a price.

But it’s Bucky who answers. “Information,” he says. “Information and skills.”

“He hasn’t given SHIELD everything they want yet,” Natasha interjects.

“I don’t have what they want, Natalia,” Bucky answers. The name comes out of his mouth with familiarity, and a hint of a Russian accent. Steve waits for jealousy, or envy, but he finds--hope, instead.

Natasha shrugs, wearing the face of someone repeating an argument they’ve already had. “They don’t believe that.”

Bucky tilts his head in acknowledgment.

“Skills,” says Steve, and finds himself growing angry. “That’s not--that’s not right. He’s been fighting for over seventy years no, goddammit, can’t he--”

“Steve,” says Bucky, and Steve stops. He looks at Bucky, who has his head dipped, but who’s eyes are still firmly fixed on Steve. “You think I’m letting you go out there on your own?”

“They’ll sent you where they want,” says Steve helplessly. “If you give this to them, they’ll send you on missions whenever they want, to do what they need you to do. You can’t--”

“I can,” says Bucky, interrupting him again, and even as Steve admires how far Bucky’s come since he last saw him, he worries over the ease of which Bucky has given up the agency he just recently reacquired.

“Please,” Steve says helplessly. He leans his head against the glass.

“I need to be able to protect you,” says Bucky softly, and it almost blurs with the ever-present static of the speakers. “You and me pal.” He swallows. “‘Til the end of the line.”

To take away this choice from him would take away Bucky’s freedom. Bucky’s right to choose. Bucky’s access to a life that could, at least partially, be filled with things beside violence.

“Yeah, Buck,” he whispers, and hopes that Bucky can hear him. “‘Til the end of the line.”

 

**_Finally._ **

A day later, Bucky shows up on his doorstep.

It’s right around lunchtime. Steve, still wound up by yesterday’s proceedings, woke up early and went on a run, ending up at a nearby farmer’s market. He bought fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, two loaves of bread, corn, honey, and something called a “pickle on a stick” that he munched as he walked home. He’s contemplating a sandwich when someone knocks on the door.

He’s not expecting anyone, and he peers through the peephole. Then he flings the door wide open.

“Bucky,” he says, and he’s going to have to start greeting Bucky properly, not just saying his name.

Bucky has his hair pulled back, and he’s in a gray t-shirt and jeans. He’s wearing a little unsure smile on his face, but his stance is strong and steady. He’s not going to run.

“Hey Steve,” he says. “Got released, realized I didn’t have anywhere to go. Mind if I crash here for a bit?”

“Well,” Steve starts, and then lifts his hand to rub the back of his neck. It makes his sweat soaked t-shirt drag up his body, showing a tiny strip of flesh. Bucky stares, and Steve drops his hand, flushing. “I might have set up an extra bedroom.”

Bucky looks up, meets his eyes, and steps forward into the apartment. Gently, he closes the door behind him. “Maybe we can work up to only needing one.”

“Yeah,” says Steve, and finally reaches out, grabs Bucky around the waist and reels him in. They embrace, and Bucky pulls back just far enough to say--

“After all, we’re gonna need a space for your art studio.”

Steve feels like his smile is splitting his face as his says, “Okay, Bucky. Whatever you want.”

Bucky mirrors his grin, and then this time he reaches up to pull Steve into a kiss, a slow soft press of lips in mid sunny summer day lighting, right smack in Brooklyn.

Finally, Steve comes home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading, and thanks to thestuckylibrary for setting this whole thing up.
> 
> As always, here's my [tumblr.](http://yourblueeyedboys.tumblr.com/) Come talk to me about this fic or anything else!


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